


Past Lives

by InsaneJul



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Computer Programs, Existential Crisis, Gen, Loss of Memory, Memories, Past Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: Agent Texas discovers who she really is. (set during Remember Me How I Was.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Did it get to anyone else when Tex yelled out Carolina's name when the Meta threw her off a cliff? Yeah. She said she would've given anything to save her.

It took a while to understand why she liked Carolina. She shouldn't, probably. Carolina hated her. But she liked the spunk. Or something. God, she didn't know. Tex just liked Carolina. She felt the need to tease her, and push her, but when Carolina fell, it was horrible. Worse than when anyone else did, and she didn't know why.

Until she opened the file. 

Everything was unclear until she opened the file. Why she liked Carolina was only at a higher point on the list. The closeness, the interest she felt for the Alpha. The treatment she got from the Director. It all made sense when she opened the file. She recognized her real name. Whether it was Beta or Allison was a mystery, but she knew it was one of those two. So when she saw them together, she knew it was for her. She opened it. 

Tex wasn't Tex at all. She wasn't Allison, either. Beta was her real name. Tex was a fake name, given to hide her in plain sight from the other freelancers. Allison was another, given to hide her from herself. Make her think she was a person. Or she had been. But she wasn't. She was just a copy of a real person. A poor copy, created by accident, and nurtured by a sick, broken man. She wasn't even real. She was less real than the Alpha, less formed. More unstable than the fragments. A thing entirely new and horrifying and wrong. She shouldn't exist. It was her fault that they even got the idea to break the Alpha up. 

And, worse than all of that, was who Allison really was. Why she hadn't been experimented on or kicked to the curb. The whole reason the Director had kept her, cared for her, given her a name and a life instead of pulling her apart to study her. Because he loved her. He loved who she was supposed to be. And what, was she supposed to love him back? Was she supposed to care? She didn't. She didn't know this woman, she didn't know her life. She didn't remember any of it. Was she supposed to? Did the Director think she'd remember, or was the point for her not to? Because she's sure, if she did, that she wouldn't forgive him. She hasn't yet, knowing what she knows. With her own, Tex's, Beta's memories. 

Maybe it would be easier if she could remember. Maybe she'd be able to differentiate between her memories and this woman's, Allison's. Maybe if she remembered what this woman knew, it would be easier to accept she wasn't real. She would remember what it felt like to be real, complete the way she isn't. It would be easier if she knew where her deficiencies were, where she was less formed. Or maybe the sign she was less formed was the blind loyalty she'd shown up until now. Why she hadn't questioned any of it. Except that she had. She just hadn't done anything about it. And Carolina...

Carolina was Alison's daughter. The revelation that she was the Director's daughter alone was enough to shock and horrify Tex, that this girl was under the authority of her father, called him "sir" and he called her "agent Carolina". Maybe she didn't remember what good parenting looked like, but she knew it wasn't this. To treat one's child as if they are no more matter than any other person, or in fact be even harder on them than anyone else they could have authority over. As if they weren't related at all. She's sure none of the other freelancers even know. How could they? But the Director had a daughter, and he was with Allison...Allison was her, or she was the copy of Allison, the woman who must be agent Carolina's mother. Allison was listed as having a daughter with a Leonard L. Church, but the girl's name was not Carolina, obviously. Tex decided she didn't want to know Carolina's real name. That would make this whole thing too real. But it explained so much. The way she inexplicably felt about Carolina, but the woman hated her. She wouldn't accept this revelation. This is a woman who knows her mother is dead and her father has abandoned her. Abandoned her in the worst way imaginable. The photograph of Allison in the file was familiar, but not familiar enough. Would it be familiar to Carolina?

Tex isn't sure what leads her to tell York, of all people, but he's who she tells. It isn't like they're close, after all. What is it about this man that makes him so trustworthy? Maybe it's that she knows he's been questioning their purpose. Maybe it's because he's in love with Carolina (a fact she may not have ever noticed had North not explained) and he would never do anything to hurt her. But then, that's exactly what she's asking him to do. Maybe it's his eye, the only concrete example of the damage the Project has caused. That he's the only other one that's been outwardly injured by them. But in the end, it doesn't matter. She tells him and he believes her. He joins her, despite that she knows it is a difficult decision for him, an impossible decision. He gives her the help she needs, and they leave separately. 

In the end, not remembering made it easier to leave. Maybe if she'd remembered how Allison loved Leonard and Carolina, she would've found it hard to leave them. But instead, she only abandoned the ghosts of familiarity, the slightest tenderness that she wouldn't have even noticed had she not spent hours poring over her own reactions. When she watched Maine throw Carolina off the edge of the cliff, the scream of protest was torn from her throat. She didn't recognize it as her own, despite the panic that seized her. That fear belonged to someone else, someone she no longer was. Someone she had never really been. Why should it matter to her to watch what was only really a ghost die?

 


End file.
